Old habits die hard. Public cloud computing however is challenging the status quo when it comes to software and application consumption. There is a plethora of public cloud computing products and services dedicated to simplifying our daily computing experience, and you'll be hard pressed these days to find a traditional software vendor not offering a cloud or online software option to consumers. Most home and small business users will particularly find this promising. As an example, for privacy and information security, it means essential security applications/services such as antivirus, data backup and secure cloud storage are now just a cloud click away.

The prices tend to range from free to low-cost annual fees that consumers will find generally appealing to their wallets - all without necessarily sacrificing quality and delivery time.

Below are just two examples of data security cloud applications / services increasingly available to consumers.

Antivirus and online browsing protection

Panda Cloud Antivirus: This, without a doubt, is one of the easiest-to-use antivirus products for protecting your computer. Just install and leave it to do its job (while you get on with yours...). No need to worry about signature file updates and the like, as is prevalent among non-cloud antivirus products. It even has a central management console for multiple computers (although you have to pay for this feature, but well worth it if needed).

Cost: Free (Pro version and Business version are available at a cost)

Figure A

Panda console

Data backup and recovery

The importance of backing up your data can't be stressed enough. By using public cloud computing disk storage and backup services, this essential requirement for recovering from that "accidental" data loss is truly simplified. One such product / service that caught my attention is the Cloudberry Online Backup.

With functionalities such as files/folder/block level backup, data compression, data encryption (AES-256), local and cloud storage location backup (supports most popular cloud storage such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google) and versioning, it ticks the right boxes for core data backup requirements. - You can even vote for new features you would like to add from their website.

Cost: From $29.00 for desktop backup

Figure B

Cloudberry features (click to enlarge)

Entry-level public cloud use

Just as music/video download has become the norm, thanks largely to high speed broadband, public cloud computing will leverage this medium to accelerate delivery of software, application and computing infrastructure as "services".

How much is public cloud computing influencing your own software buying habits? From gaming to serious business applications, do you find yourself thinking how much you'll save in time and cost if you opt for the cloud /online service? I do!